


You're Beautiful

by lover_of_art



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Clizzy if you squint, Gen, Happy Ending, Teen Warning for a few words, angst? I guess, honestly i don't know what this is, i just have a lot of feelings for her alright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25991083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lover_of_art/pseuds/lover_of_art
Summary: Isabelle Lightwood knew she was beautiful. She's been told enough times to know it. People who knew her thought she thrived on it, lived for the attention and praise.But the truth is, it was never the beauty she was after.orIzzy and her journey with beauty. It's more than meet's the eye.
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Isabelle Lightwood, Alec Lightwood & Isabelle Lightwood & Jace Wayland
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	You're Beautiful

Isabelle Lightwood knew she was beautiful. She's been told enough times to know it. People who knew her thought she thrived on it, lived for the attention and praise. 

But the truth is, it was never the beauty she was after. 

She was just a toddler when she first remembered her father calling her beautiful. He’d twirl her around when it was just them and give her some sweets when her mother wasn’t looking. And the gifts, oh how she’d love them. She smiled her toothy grin she knew he loved and accepted them with enthusiasm. If it were clothes or accessories she would model it for him and he'd tell her again. 

“You are beautiful, princess. The most beautiful.” She felt seen then, appreciated. She, until now, would look up to him and feel like something worth treasuring. 

She was nine when the Hardmark boy told her she was beautiful. Pretty, even. That was a big deal because he’d announced to her that she was his  _ crush _ , that he’d give up his dessert for  _ her. _ When she asked why he picked her as his crush, he said it was because of her long hair and her nice face. If her family noticed that she did her hair better and batted her lashes more at people, they didn’t say. 

Then more boys from her class told her she was their crush. They asked her to sit next to them, or to practice and study with them more. She had never remembered feeling more important. 

The first time she thought to show more skin, she was thirteen. 

Her and Jace had snuck out after patrol, when the nest that they went out to take out was smaller than imagined, and they imagined it really small. Alec just tried to argue but still covered for them, as usual. There was a mall still open and she went on her merry way, lost in all the gorgeous displays. Booths and shops on end, filled with clothes and stuff that were different from their norm. Mundanes  _ were  _ weird but they had taste—sometimes. She was glad she brought the card that their parents gave them, though she got a techy friend in Academy to make sure that they didn’t see how often she used it, or on what. She tried on lots of things then, but then she saw the girl on the poster. Her dress was absolutely tiny and looked like a second skin with how tight it was. The saleslady saw her ogling at it and told her how it was all the rave, how boys loved those and girls wanted to be skinny enough to wear those. Said her toned figure would look amazing in those tiny dresses. 

When she tried them on, everyone in the store told her she was beautiful. Some older ladies told her they were envious of her figure and her clear skin. Her smile was proud and accepted when they told her how lucky she was.

The fight that followed with her mother with all the praise she was getting from her peers. She didn’t mind the envious whispers that some girls would mumble behind her back. They didn’t understand what she did it for. Alec raised his brow at her but never chided her for it. 

She was 15 when she first went clubbing. Alec and Jace were with her somewhere in the huge place, but she could hardly see. The moment they walked in, they were like fish out of water. But she always adjusted well, soon enough she was lost in the throng of people. Well, lost might not be the word—surrounded more like it. Predatory eyes following her. So many numbers were slipped to her and so many terrible pick up lines. When she’d tired of the men pushing against her, she went to get herself a drink. Looking out at the crowd, she could help the pleased smile, because she knew this was  _ her _ crowd. 

“You smart enough for what you’re playing at, honey?” 

She startled, not expecting the lone woman to speak to her. Her dress was more forgiving than her own but stooped lower to a point that even she was scandalized. She had an easy air around her, but the closer you look the more you see that it wasn’t all that easy. She looked even more predatory than those men leering at her. Completely mundane from the looks of it, too. 

“And what am I playing at?” It wasn’t a challenge but it sounded like it. They both knew it was just her curiosity.

“Oh, darling. You can dress yourself like a dream and wrap them around your fingers all you want, and it’ll be enough for a time. But it won’t be for long.”

She tipped the rest of her drink regally, “That power’s gonna lose its punch after a while.”

She went with a guy that she couldn’t remember the name of to a room then, and felt as formidable as she had every time someone would tell her she’s beautiful. That night he said she was beautiful so many times. 

That lady she saw at the club always scared her more than she cared to admit. Because if she didn’t feel powerful from that cursed beauty any more, then really, was it all worth it? 

To be called a slut not-so secretly, to be undignified from everyone’s standards, judged for the flesh she shows and not the competency she proves. Perpetually underestimated.

And then Jace calls her beautiful, too. Just when he feels she’s down. Not without teasing and feign reluctance of course. But she sees the genuine care in his eyes and the small smile that he saves just for her and Alec. He nudges her with his shoulder and she’s laughing again. He says it again for good measure. 

“You know you’re beautiful, right? Don’t matter what anyone says.” She smiles then and relishes in the warmth she feels, like her heart is sated for now. 

When Clary crashed into their lives, she told her she was beautiful, too. “Iz, with a body like yours, everything’s your color.” And that was just that, an artist telling it like it is. But she was still elated, because she felt like someone was looking up to her, not in the way that others usually did. Like she’s got someone under her wing. 

She dressed the redhead in her designer hunting clothes then and told her she was beautiful, too. She could see the power in her eyes, simmering under the fear she felt. 

Alec had always said it so freely to her. Not once was he lying, or reluctant, or insincere. He knew what it meant, too. But she was never judged for it. He knew this way her way and he’d gladly indulge her. The one constant power that he gave her was always the purest that she could ever get. “My beautiful sister,” he would call her. Though when he said it, he meant all of her. Her brains, her cunningness, and her vigor. 

She loved him all the more for it. 

And on the faithful day of his marriage, when she wore that gorgeously sinful dress, she expected to need that power the way she’d always used it before. As though she were a warlock gathering her magic underneath her skin, preparing for the role it has played countless years. But she was surprised she didn’t need it for when her mother reached her, all she did was smile. 

Maryse Lightwood looked her in the eyes and there she saw pride, those eyes went down run over her figure and for a second she braced for the worst. Even so, those eyes never held the disapproval she was expecting, they filled with tears that almost spilled when she smiled. Her mother’s hands ran up and down her arms, gripping them with tenderness that was foreign to both of them. 

“You’re beautiful, Isabelle.” 


End file.
